Draft letters from NASA’s James Hansen to Prime Minister Brown and Chancellor Merkel about coal are here. Bottom line:
(1) Phase-out of coal use that does not capture CO2. This is 80% of the solution, creating a situation in which CO2 emissions are declining sharply. (Coal use will also be affected by the second essential action. Indeed, it is likely that much of the coal will be left in the ground, as incentives spark innovations and positive feedbacks, accelerating progress to the cleaner world beyond fossil fuels.)
(2) A gradually but continually rising price on carbon emissions. This will assure that, as oil production inevitably declines, humanity does not behave as a desperate addict, seeking every last drop of oil in the most extreme pristine environments and squeezing oil from tar shale, coal, and other high-carbon sources that would assure destruction of our climate and most species on the planet. Recognition by industry of a continually rising carbon price (and elimination of fossil fuel subsidies) would drive innovations in energy efficiency, renewable energies, and other energy sources that do not produce greenhouse gases.
These are the two fundamental actions that must occur if we are to roll back the net climate forcing and avoid the dangerous climate tipping points, with their foreseeable consequences. Both of these actions are essential.
We can make a long list of supplementary actions that will be needed to avoid hardships and minimize dislocations as we phase into a cleaner world beyond fossil fuels. However, the two essential actions must be given priority and governments must explain the situation to the public.
Supplementary actions include improved efficiency standards on buildings, vehicles, appliances, etc. Rules must be changed so that utilities profit by encouraging efficiency, rather than selling more energy. But governments must recognize these actions as being supplementary to the essential actions dictated by the physics of the carbon cycle, specifically the requirement to constrain release of CO2 to the air from the large carbon reservoirs.
Here! Here!
Hansen welcomes comments.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
This has made me feel very much more positive. It has been depressing recently, but with specific action like this from more and more senior scientist, and politicians coming on board hope is there. We are in for major changes though, which we also need to start planning for – the big one being sea level rise.
Three cheers to Hansen – hope he copies this to many more key persons.
PS Can we put forward nominations for the next Noble Peace prize now?
Al Gore’s Live Earth Pledge has a fatal flaw: “the capacity
to safely trap and store the CO2.” There is no safe way to
confine trillions of tons of CO2 at high pressure for ever.
For Ever is a lot longer than the 100000 years that people
want nuclear “waste” to be stored. The CO2 WILL
leak out and suffocate millions of people. CO2 is denser
than air and displaces air at ground level. CO2 has caused
suffocation in Africa. See:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1155057.stm
“Cameroon’s ‘killer lake’ degassed”
“More than 1,700 people died after deadly gases spewed
from Lake Nyos 15 years ago. ”
“In August 1986, the lake released a cloud of carbon
dioxide which hugged the ground and flowed down
surrounding valleys to suffocate thousands of local villagers
and animals.
The rare phenomenon also occurred at Lake Monoun in the
same volcanic zone two years earlier killing 34 people. ”
The CO2 storage facilities proposed by Al Gore, besides
being prone to leak, will be a target for terrorists. A
terrorist has only to cause a leak to kill more people than a
nuclear bomb would. Leaks are very easy to cause in high
pressure containers. CO2 storage is a silent disaster
waiting to happen.
The pledge Should read: “I will learn enough about nuclear
physics so that I will no longer be paranoid about nuclear
power. I will advocate the replacement of coal fired power
plants with the newest nuclear power plant designs.”
I [Asteroid Miner] have no financial or other interest in
nuclear power and no connection with the nuclear power
industry.
It is HOT CO2 that goes up smolestacks. Being hot it is
less dense so it goes up and disperses. Stored CO2 is cool.
A gas gets colder as it leaks out from high pressure to low
pressure. That is the secret of air conditioning. CO2 at
the same temperature as air is denser than air because CO2
is a heavier molecule than N2 or O2. The cold CO2 will
stick to the ground and suffocate people and other animals.
No other gas is required to explain the deaths in Cameroon.
Here in the US, more CO2 will leak out into areas with
more people, so the death toll could be in the millions.
The Live Earth Pledge reads:
I PLEDGE:
-To demand that my country join an international treaty
within the next 2 years that cuts global warming pollution
by 90% in developed countries and by more than half
worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a
healthy earth;
-To take personal action to help solve the climate crisis by
reducing my own CO2 pollution as much as I can and
offsetting the rest to become “carbon neutral;”
-To fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new
generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to
safely trap and store the CO2;
-To work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency of
my home, workplace, school, place of worship, and means
of transportation;
-To fight for laws and policies that expand the use of
renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on oil
and coal;
-To plant new trees and to join with others in preserving
and protecting forests; and,
-To buy from businesses and support leaders who share my
commitment to solving the climate crisis and building a
sustainable, just, and prosperous world for the 21st century.
Not buying it. I agree the jury is out on whether coal CCS is practical and affordable at large-scale — and if done on a large-scale, there is the possibility of leaks, and maybe even fatalities. But the scenarios you describe of large fatalities — and especially your scenario for terrorism — is implausible. If anything is vulnerable to terrorism causing mass death and chaos, it is a mass expansion of nuclear power.
Joe, in your book you call for building more nuclear power plants, don’t you? How many more did you say we need? 900 or something like that worldwide?
I never said I was opposed to building more nuclear power plants, only that it is not a legitimate argument to say that terrorism is a reason to build nukes rather than CCS.
I suspect the world will build many more nuclear power plants over the next 50 years, in part because of global warming. As I argue in my book, I’m not sure the U.S. needs them to meet any near-term GHG targets.
The MIT report, The Future of Coal, http://web.mit.edu/coal/ has a lot of information on CCS, if folks are interested. See chapter 4. I’m somewhat reticent about CCS myself, but you might want to read chapter 4 before making up your own mind.
In terms of nuclear, there are 439 nuclear power reactors in operation in the world producing about 300 gigawatt (GW). Joe has proposed (in Hell and High Water) building 700 new reactors, I think at 1GW each. If we take the IAEA’s 2005 Red Book data of known recoverable U235 reserves of 4.7 million tonnes, and 204 tonnes per GW year, then this 1000GW of nuclear power will use 204,000 tonnes per year. The 4.7 million tonnes will then last 23 years. Using the non cost constrained figured of 14.8 million tonnes of “Reasonably Assured”, “Inferred”, “Prognosticated”, and “Speculative” uranium, then we find 76 years. So what Joe has suggested as one wedge of the solution is about what the U235 once-thru fuel cycle can support. Charles Barton, a frequent pro-nuclear commenter on these pages, would say we therefore need spent fuel reprocessing, breeder reactors, and Thorium reactors. Whether this is politically feasible in the long term or not is a question I don’t feel is too important right now, because right now those things cannot happen soon enough to make a dent in global warming. We need solutions now.